Dance Through the Pain
by Shatteredsand
Summary: I stared for a while and waited for words, seen but not heard. Sometimes I wish you would leave me. Don't you leave me... -Sequel to "Dance Until Dawn"-
1. Useless Feelings

**AN: Sequel to "Dance Until Dawn". If you haven't read that one first, please do so or risk becoming horrendously confused. Takes place during the summer break before the gang's senior year.**

**AN2: So after the finale, I had to post. But be forewarned: I only have this chapter finished, so the rest might be a little slow witht he updates. I sorry. You mad? (bonus points tot anyone who catches that GIF reference)**

**Summary: I stared for a while and waited for words, seen but not heard. Sometimes I wish you would leave me. Don't you leave me...**

**Warnings: language, lemon**

**Disclaimer: I wrote this TWENTY times in the prequel, is that not ENOUGH? No? Oh, well then, I don't own "Skins".**

**Chapter One**

**Useless Feelings**

Tea's dancing with Daisy and Abbud, laughing and smiling. And Tony, instead of partying it up, seems to have fallen back into old habits. He's just watching her, more longing in his eyes than he would like.

He could have her, right now. If he wanted. All he'd have to do is whisper something vaguely dirty in her ear and touch her just so, and they'd be scurrying to the nearest available bedroom. Or bathroom. Or any room with a door, table, counter, or sturdy wall; they're not shy people.

But if he does that, and god he's such a _pussy_, if he does that, it'll just be about sex. And he kinda doesn't want it to be. He kinda wants to...you know, _make love_.

Tony counters this horribly sappy thought with another slug of whatever they're serving at this club. The soothing effect of the liquor is banished when he notices a girl, beautiful and obviously interested, wrap her arms around Tea to dance wantonly with her. He has to grit his teeth together and reel in the sudden urge to go to her and let this whole damn club know that Tea is off limits because she's _his_. But he can't.

Because she's _not_.

He watches her dancing with the little slut, hips gyrating together almost obscenely, and wonders if Tea'll take her home tonight for a night of meaningless screwing. If she knows that he doesn't want her to. If she realizes that he hasn't been with anyone but her since they got their act together. That if she takes this girl to her bed, it'll hurt him.

He hopes that she doesn't.

He hopes that she does.

Tony settles for watching, and hoping his conflicting hopes. And wanting her. All of her, in all the ways he knows he can't have her.

LINE BREAK

Maybe he can. The thought enters his head as she pulls him laughing from the club. She left nameless slut back on the dancefloor. She'd rather be with him. He kisses her, hungry and passionate, and she returns it with just as much fire. He's burning from the inside out with want and need and hope and, damn him, _love_.

He runs his hands over her, touching her just the way he knows she likes. Right on cue, she's moaning into his mouth, just a little more anxious to get to his place than she had been a second ago. He smirks into the kiss because he knows her so fucking well. He can tell you where to touch and how, all the ways to make her moan and writhe and scream.

Then she's slamming him against a wall, hard enough to hurt just the tiniest bit as she bites down on his bottom lip, and he remembers that she knows him just as well. They've been doing this for months now, seven actually, not that he's been paying attention or anything, and she knows his body and mind better than any other living soul and she can make screams tumble from his lips just as easily as he can pry them from hers.

"My place?" He gasps out when her mouth leaves his, even as he's rolling them so her back is against the wall. It's still a fight for control, and while he doesn't mind losing when it's her, he likes to win more.

Tea just nods, eager to get this show on the road. Tony really hopes that it has more to do with him than the actual sex.

But they're stumbling away from the club, hands touching, lips brushing, touch-touch-touching everything. Or maybe nothing. Tony can't tell any more. He just knows that this is the way they are, hands and lips and tongues and teeth.

The door shuts silently behind them, even as their laughter echoes through the house. They should be better at this by now, at the sneaking in and out. But it feels new every time, feels fun and free and real the way nothing else is in their worlds. Maybe that's why he loves her. Maybe that's why he can't stop.

"Shh." He shushes against her neck before biting down and making her moan. Clothes are falling off. Shirts and pants and underwear. Her nails bite into his skin; his hands leave the faintest beginnings of bruises on her hips. They fall into bed, remember to forget to remember to feel again.

He slides inside, hard and fast because gentle can wait, and they need this now. She muffles a cry against his shoulder and, his earlier warning already forgotten, he wants to hear her. Wants to memorize the sound of him and her the way they are now, in case they never are again.

He's scared of that now. The way he had been scared before about wanting this, he now fears losing it.

He wonders if she can feel it. The need, not the sexual one, he _knows _she can feel that, but the real one buried underneath it. The one that wants her to be his and only his forever. If she knows that he knows that he shouldn't, but he can't help himself.

"God, Tony..." She gasps out, coming hard around him, and he keeps at it, pounding in as hard as he can, trying to get so far inside she'll never get him out. And then his body is failing him, succumbing to the pleasure of having Tea wrapped so tightly around him.

He rests heavily on his elbows, hovering above her as they gasp for breath, and the words almost slip out. _I love you _creeping up from the back of mind and throat to the tip of his tongue. He wants to say it. He wants her to know just how much he needs her now. But he swallows the words back, nearly choking on them. He knows better than that.

He wants to say it.

But Tea doesn't want to hear it.


	2. Steady, But Starting to Shake

**AN: Sorry about the long wait. I had to finish writing it, and my internet is being bitchy. But, chapter three is done as well, so lots of reviews=fast update. Maybe like ten or so...**

**Warning: language, little fluff.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins".**

**Chapter Two  
****Steady, But Starting to Shake**

Tea wakes with the scents of Axe Instinct and sex and old smoke and something that's just _Tony _mixing pleasantly around her. Tony's arms wrapped around her tight, familiar and safe in all the aways she doesn't want them to be. She wants to stay and just be with him. Just for a minute. Just _one _minute.

But she's moving, slowly so not to wake Tony even though she knows he sleeps so lightly that it will anyway, out of his arms and bed. And his hand is whipping out and latching around her wrist.

"Come back." He mumbles almost inaudibly, but she's freakishly aware of him, so she hears.

"I need to go, Tone." Tea says, damning the smile on her face and him for putting it there. She shouldn't be happy that he's acting boyfriendly. He's _not _her boyfriend. She doesn't _want _him to be. Can't want him to be.

"Still early." His eyes crack open, thin slivers of chocolate brown that clash with her own. He knows she really doesn't have anywhere to be at nine am on a Sunday, and, not for the first time, he's not willing to just let her go with her flimsy excuse.

"Have things to do, you know, besides you."

"Bullshit, Tay." He smiles, slow and lazy and completely devoid of the mask he wears so often. She isn't even surprised anymore because she's seen him drop the facade and show his true self when it's just the two of them. But just when it's him and her, Tony and Tea and no one else. She's choosing to ignore what that says about his comfort level with her that he'd let her see him as a man, capable of flaws and errors and imperfection, instead of the man-god he pretends to be. He can just be Tony Snyder rather than Tony Fucking Snyder, the boy who would be king.

Or what it says about her comfort with him that she does the same, stops pretending to so untouchable and unstoppable. That the mask just slips off for when they're alone, like she'd never worn one at all. That she can just be Tea Marvelli rather than Tea Fucking Marvelli, the head bitch in charge.

The masters of manipulation, together and alone, unable to manipulate the other.

And he's getting too close for comfort. Too close to her heart. She doesn't love him. She doesn't. But she cares more than she should. More than she wants to.

(She loves him. She really, really does and she wants it to _stop_.)

"Emergency cheer practice cause we suck?" She tries half-heartedly.

"Buuullllshhhiiit." He sing-songs, and if it was anyone else, it'd be annoying as fuck. But it's Tony, so it's just...not. God help her, but she actually thinks it's kind of _cute_.

"You're going to be a little bitch about this aren't you?" She sneers with a soft smile.

"No." He smiles back. "I'mma be a _big _bitch, cause that's the best way to get your sorry ass back in bed. S'too fucking early for any moving that doesn't involve me inside of you."

"Ah, I get it now." Tea rolls her eyes. "You just want help with your morning wood."

"Caught me." He shoots back playfully, tugging her down. She's caught off guard, so she actually falls. "And now I've caught you."

"Smug little bastard, aren't you?" She shakes her head as his arms come around her to prevent any more attempts to escape.

"Pretty much all the time. But I'll try for humble next time."

"Liar." The worst lie she's ever heard. She's never seen him be anything but cocky and confident in everything he does. It's just not in him.

"Turns you on though, doesn't it?" He's smirking as he crashes his lips to hers. And, yeah, it does. But that's not quite the point right this second. His tongue slips into her mouth, and she forgets the point as well. It's always like that with them. Fighting until they're bantering, and the words are playful instead of harsh. Bantering until they're touching, and neither of them wants to think anymore. Touching until they're fucking, and they get so wrapped up in each other that nothing else matters.

It's comfortable. It's safe. It's, fuck it, it's just _them _and how they work. And it's working just fucking fine for them. So it doesn't need to be any different.

"You," She pulls away with a teasing smirk. "have morning breath."

"Nah. That's last night breath. Perfectly acceptable." He grins, crashes his lips to hers.

"We're fucking hopeless, aren't we?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely."

"I'm leaving now." Tea rolls her eyes again, gathering up her discarded clothes from the night before.

"I love you."

What?

The words echo around in her ears, incomprehensible. Meaningless sound that could never be rearranged to make sense, to make words. But, slowly, the meaning sinks in. The sound's cacophony disorganized into words that she never wanted to hear. Not like this. Not from him.

"No. You don't."


	3. Bleeding Where I Bled

**AN: Where are all my repeat reviewers? I miss you guys. Actually, where are all my reviewers period? Is this sequel not up to snuff? Is that it? Because the reviews I do have are rather positive... Help me out here guys, I'm all confused... :( And needy. I love me some reviews. I've got 7 out of 10 chapters all typed up and no apparent interest in what's already posted.**

**Warnings: Language**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins".**

**Chapter Three  
****Bleeding Where I Bled**

"I love you."

"No. You don't."

What?

Tony blinks rapidly, then stares at Tea with disbelief. How dare she decide that he doesn't love her. He does. He loves her so much it makes him sick inside, damnit. And he knows he's not supposed to, that she hadn't wanted to know that things had changed. That they've gone from casual sex to seven words below a real, fully functioning relationship.

And he's lost again in her eyes, the panic in her eyes; pure, wild _panic_.

"Yes. I do. I _love _you." Tony growls, trying to make her see, to make her understand.

"Stop it, Tone." Tea sighs, shutting down in slow motion right in front of his eyes. Panic receeding into the walled off emotionlessness he knows so well because he's seen it in his own more often than he'd ever admit. Face closing down, becoming a mask that shows nothing and feels nothing. "People like us? We don't fall in love, Tony. We're too broken."

"We _match_." There's more conviction in those two words than any he's ever uttered before because to him and her, they more more than anything else ever have or ever will. "We work. You and me, we work because we make each other feel."

"We work because the sex is amazing and neither of us gets emotionally involved. If the equation has changed, please, let me know."

"Don't do this. Stop hiding behind everything we both know is a _lie_." Tony begs. He never begs, never, but Tea is worth the humilation. He reaches out for her, but the mask is pulling away. He comforts himself that it's not her anymore, that she's just hiding because she's scared of feeling anything real. But it still hurts. More than it could if he didn't feel exactly the way she wishes he didn't.

"I've got to go." And she's running from him again. The way he'd always hoped she wouldn't and always knew she would.

"Coward!" He shouts as the door closes behind her, anger overriding pain. But it's not enough to bring her back.

Tea's gone.

* * *

Tony palms his eyes, turns, punches the wall. His fist buries into the dry wall, little bits flaking down and littering his floor, a flurry of white powder floating through the air. Something in his hand pops unpleasently when he pulls it back out, but he doesn't think anything's broken.

You know, except his heart.

He feels like such a fucking pansy. All upset over a girl. A damn girl. He doesn't need her. Doesn't need this. He's Tony fucking Snyder, he doesn't need anything or anyone.

But he does. Damn it all to fucking hell, he needs Tea.

What the bleeding fuck was he thinking, telling her he loved her. He knew, _knew_, that she didn't want to hear it, had reminded himself of that fact just last night.

He hadn't meant to say it. The words just sort of tumbled out. Word vomit. The soul baring, so truthful it hurts, I was never going to say that out loud but I really, really mean it kind. The worst fucking kind.

And now Tea is gone, running for the hills. Running away from him and how he feels, how she made him feel. It's not like he did this all by himself, you know. She played her part with all the joking and the bantering and the fighting and the extraordinary sex and the making him so damn comfortable in his own skin that he didn't feel like he had to be anyone else, didn't have to be the boy-king and just be Tony. It's almost all her fucking fault.

She made him feel like this. Like some puppy looking up at her from the kennel, only for her to decide that he's not quite the mangy mutt she's looking for. And it's not fucking fair. She can't just do that to him. Can't make him feel this way, and just leave when she doesn't want to deal with it anymore.

She just can't.

But she did.


	4. Hiding WHere I Hid

**AN:**

**Warnings: language**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins".**

**Chapter Four  
****Hiding Where I Hid**

_I love you._

The stupid sentence playing over and over again on repeat inside her head. It doesn't belong there. It's a _lie_. A dirty, disgusting lie. The kind that even she wouldn't tell. The kind that fucks another person up so bad they never really get over it. Damn Tony Snyder for ever saying those three words to her.

It isn't fair.

This thing, this horribly twisted and bent and mishapen thing that they had, it was working beautifully until he had to go and say those freaking eight letters in the worst possible combination.

She's fumbling with her phone, prepares to call Daisy for a night of boyless partying that ends with them wonderfully wasted and numb. But when Daisy picks up something else spills out of her lips.

"Daisy? Can I come over? Tony just fucked up."

"Yes. Come over. Right now."

* * *

"Who'd he fuck?" is Daisy's slightly less than heart warming greeting.

"What? No one." Tea's confused for a second, then the pieces fll into place. _Tony just fucked up_. Of course Daisy would jump to cheating. He has been known to do that on more than one occasion. She decides not to bother pointing out that Tony can't cheat on her, per se, since they're not really _together_. "He told me he loves me."

Daisy blinks for a minute. Really, like for a whole minute, she does nothing but stare and blink. "Tea...That's a good thing..."

"_No_. It's _not_." Tea bites out. "This was very _simple_. Fucking between friends. No _feelings_, none of that emotions shit _at all_. Just _sex_."

"How many girls have you fucked since you and Tony started screwing around?" Daisy asks, suddenly too serious for Tea's liking. Where's that best friend support she'd been looking for?

"None really. I didn't need a meaningless hook-up from a bar; I had a meaningless hook-up with Tony in the wings."

"That wasn't meaningless, since, you know, you've been in something like love with him for months now."

"No, I haven't." Tea answers instantly. No hesitation. She most certainly does _not _love Tony. He's a great friend and a great lay, but that's all it is.

"Tea, seven months ago, you were crying about how he _fixes _you. Sounds a lot like love to me."

"You're fucking _Abbud_, what the hell do you know about _love_?" Tea snarls, and immediately wants to take it back. A flash of hurt crosses Daisy's face, but she wipes it off quickly.

"I'll let that go cause you're clearly flipping your shit right now, but that topic is clearly closed until you get it the fuck together." Daisy says sternly, features closing off into her _I fucking mean business_ face.

"Sorry. I just...what the fuck am I gonna do, Daze?" Tea closes her eyes and tries to make this make sense in her head. It doesn't. "I don't want a boyfriend. I don't love him; I don't want him to love me."

"First, stop saying you don't love him. You may scared shitless by it, but you _do _love him. Second, take a bit to get over said fear, since it's completely _irrational_, and then call him and tell him."

"Or, since I don't love him, I could just ignore him until he goes away."

"He's your best friend, Tay. You see him everyday. And even if you avoid him for now, what are gonna do when school starts again? Oh, and yeah, you fucking love him."

"Stop saying that! I _don't_." She refuses to.

"Go home, Tea. Dance, think, eat ice cream, and watch horrible tv dramas. Do all that teenage girl crap that you've managed to avoid having to do for the past seventeen years. Then, once you've thoroughly come to terms with the fact that, god help you, you're in love with Tony Snyder, call the boy and politely help him shove the heart you've just mangled back into his chest."

"I don't love him, Daisy. I just _don't_, okay?" Tea sighs, but rises to leave. "I don't do relationships. I don't do love."

"Before Tony, you didn't do boys either. He changes things, though, doesn't he?"

Tea doesn't answer, just heads home to avoid that line of thought at all costs. Because, damn him, Tony really does have the infuriating habit of changing every-fucking-thing.


	5. Can't Keep My Filthy Fucking Mouth Shut

**AN: So Tony could almost be OOC in this chap, if it wasn't for the fact that he acts very similar in the finale. He does not deal with reject very well, our Tony Snyder. We love him regardless. Or, well, I do.**

**AN2: Fanfiction is being mean and won't let me spell check, so I apologize for any misspellings. They're only _half_ my fault...**

**Warnings: Language**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins"**

**Chapter Five  
****Can't Keep My Filthy Fucking Mouth Shut**

Tony is lying on his bed, normally immaculate clothes wrinkling. His hands are pressed against his eyes, as if he can make the image of Tea walking away from him and his declaration go away if he just pushes hard enough. But he can't will away the sound of her complete and utter rejection. Not just of him, but of everything he feels for her.

_No. You don't._

"She loves me." Tony whispers, almost pitifully. _Almost_, because he's never pitiful. Though the look Eura is shooting him right now from her perch on the edge of his bed seems to imply differently. "What? She _does_."

An agreeing nod this time. Much better. Of course, her eyes are still saying _you pitiful fuck_, so not really.

"She just has commitment issues. Scares her. That's all." Tony defends. But he's honestly not sure if he's trying to convince Eura or himself. He wants to be sure, to be able to say without a doubt that she's just freaking out. But it's been _three days_, and she hasn't come back, hasn't called, hasn't so much as responded to any of his dozens of pleading texts to just fucking _talk _to him.

So, yeah, there's this little, tiny, almost nonexistent kernal of doubt. And, it grows a little with every unanswered mesage, every ignored call, every second she's not in his arms. And he knows that it makes him a needy little girl, but he doesn't _care_.

He would do anything to just have back in his life.

Eura flops down next to him, and, in a moment of sibling affection, she wraps her arms around him in a sideways hug. His own arms respond, rise from his sides to return the embrace.

"I feel like such a fucking pussy." He mumbles. His sisters affirmative nod does nothing to soothe the wound to his injured pride, but she's a Snyder, so he kinda expected it. She learned it all from him, after all.

They just lie in silence for a while. Hours, if the fading sun is any indicator. And that's something that Tony can appriciate about Eura, the easy silence that there's never any need to fill. They can just...be. For now. Until the real world blows up this peaceful little bubble where nothing can touch them ever again.

"Tony, Eura! Dinner!" Their mom shouts, disturbing the delicate balence of nothingness that had envolped them.

"Better go pretend we're normal then, huh, little sis?" Tony tries for levity, but he just sounds tired. He hates that. That Tea can have so much power over him without even trying. Withouth even wanting it.

Without wanting _him_.

Eura justs looks at him all sad and knowing and, once again, he _hates _this.

He is not that guy. The one who can't function if the object of his affection isn't interested. The one who stews in his own unrequited love. Who gets so caught up in someone else that he forgets who he is when they leave. But he's acting like that guy now. It's just what Tea does to him.

Has he mentioned how much he hates this yet? He has? Fucking good, because he really does.

Dinner is a painful affair. His dad keeps pausing in the middle of his long, rambling sentences to shoot these odd little looks at Tony, waiting for him to spout off some glib, sarcastic remark that will send the elder into a tiff. But Tony is silent. He's just not in the mood to dick around with his old man right now.

Mother dearest is looking back and forth between the rest of them. To Jim, who's talking. To him, who's quietly despondent. To Eura, who still isn't speaking. And back to Jim. Tony thinks she might give herself whiplash if she keeps this up.

And when the horrid thing is over, Tony and Eura amble back up to his room without a word to either parent because, face it, they lost touch with them ages ago and nothing they do now will ever make them a real family again.

"I shouldn't have said anything to her." Tony tells her, leaning heavily against his door. "Everything was going fucking great, and then I opened my mouth and spewed shit all over it. Why couldn't I just kept my damn mouth shut?"

Eura pauses on the way to her own room and hugs him again. He suddenly feels like the younger sibling in this equation. And it at once makes everything better, and worse.

"Whatever." He says, stepping out of her arms. "S'not the end of the world or anything, right? Just a girl."

But Eura's eye's tell him that even she doesn't believe him, because, honestly, who the hell is he trying to fool? Tea's never been _just _anything to him.

Just a girl who seemed cool...who he had to know.

Just a friend...he'd like to fuck.

Just a benefriend...he'd like to date.

And now she's just that girl...who he fell hopelessly in love with.


	6. It Used to Be Easy

**AN: Special shout out to my reviews. You are so few but so great. Spell check is still being a whiny little bitch, so apologies to any and all errors...**

**Warnings: language**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins".**

**Chapter Six  
****It Used to Be Easy**

The club is wild tonight. Neon flashes of light that shatter the darkness for a second before fading away again. Music turned up so ridiculously loud that any and all forms of communication are useless, the bass off it jolting through her converse and running up her legs. The green bottle of beer resting in her palm feels feather-light, though she's not sure if's it's because she's had too much/just enough to drink or because the thing's nearly empty.

And, to complete the easy perfection she'd once done so well and so effortlessly, is a hot lesbian draped all over her as they dance. Tea can't remember her name, but it doesn't matter here, now, in this place. So she kisses her. Slow and seductive, full of silent promises of greater things to come. She kisses back, a hint of hard demand behind soft lips. Tea knows this is exactly what she needed. Someone hot and nameless. Someone meaningless.

But, her hands trailing slowly over Nameless's sides, Tea realizes that apparently she hasn't had enough to drink because even with her tongue teasing a particularly sensative spot on the other girl's neck, she fucking misses Tony.

She wantsto feel him struggling for control, and know that he'll give it up if she really wants to take it. She wants to feel him suddenly turn the tables and make her the prey, to make it okay to not be control. To wrest it from her too tight grip and show her that she doesn't need it, that it's strangling her and she's strangling it.

But she doesn't want to be in love.

So she won't be.

It's not that simple, of course. No, when is anything in her life ever simple? But she'll make it happen. She'll break down this weird connection that just won't die, and she won't love Tony Snyder. She simply _won't_.

Nameless is grinding against her and it feels good and so yet so very wrong. And she wants to get out. To breathe for a second without the ghost of Tony's touch haunting her. It isn't fair. She didn't ask him to fall in love. She didn't ask for _any _of this.

Except she did. With a stolen dance and a stolen kiss, she asked for everything and, without hesitation, he gave it to her. Even when she told him she didn't want it. Even when the world was burning down around them because of what should have been a mistake but wasn't. He gave her control. He gave her his crown and his world.

He gave her his heart.

And suddenly it's too much. Too much. She can't be here. Not like this. Not with her. It's twisted and obscene, and she can't _do _this. She just can't.

"I've got to go." The words spill, slurred from her lips. She sounds like someone else. Someone weak and nervous and out-of-control. Someone broken more than just a little but less than a lot.

"What?" The girl is trying to ask. Tea can see her lips moving, but it doesn't matter because she's already halfway gone. The swarming crowd of gyrating adolescents and collegians is hell to get through, closing in around her. Tea fights her way through though because she's always been a fighter, even when she knows she's on the losing team.

The doors fly open and the crisp night air greets her, black night lit with twinkling stars thatremind her of night long ago shared with a friend who was more. Who wanted to be everything he didn't know how to say.

And she thinks that maybe that's when she started falling.

But she decides that this is where she stops.

* * *

She doesn't know why she's here. Standing across the street from Tony's house, the windows dark, the residents sleeping or out to party. She hopes Tony is part of the former. She hopes he's the latter.

She doesn't know what she wants. Hasn't that always been the problem?

But she's calling him, waiting to see if he answers, if the light comes on and he's here. Or if he's trying to forget her the way she tried to forget him. For a second her stomach twists harshly at the thought and she hates herself. He's not hers. Never was. Never will be. And he can fuck whoever he wants whenever he wants. This is not a relationship and their not a couple and this twisted mockery is ending.

"Tea?" The voice is groggy with sleep, but so hopeful it breaks her heart. Of course he's home. He'd been begging her to talk to him for days now. And she'd been ignoring him for days now. Why wouldn't he jump at the sight of her name on the caller ID?

"Yeah." Her voice shakes, just a little, and she hates it. Thisn't how it was meant to go. She should have sent a text. Something simple like _we're done_. Or maybe _it's over_. Something that wouldn't include her having to hear his voice.

The curtain jerk and suddenly he's there, silluetted in shadows. "Come inside."

"I don't thinks so, Tony." Tea shakes her head, but he's already disappearing as the connection dies. And she could run now. Fall back on that brilliant text plan, but she doesn't. What would be the point? Tony always chases when she runs.

His door is opening, house still dark, and she's crossing the street to meet him the same way she has a hundred times before. His hand finds hers in the darkness and he leads her back up the stairs to his room, the same way he has a hundred times before. And this is all so sickeningly familiar. Comfortable. Safe.

Tea would be safe with Tony.

The realization is jarring in the quiet stillness. It had never occured to her that they wouldn't hurt each other, wouldn't tear each other to pieces just to build them back up and do it all over again. The idea of this, this farce, ever being secure rather than unstable is almost laughable, but it's _true_.

The gentle firmness of his hand in her own is a silent promise she's sure he's never given anyone else.

_I love you._


	7. It Hurts to Stay

**AN:**

**Warnings: Language**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins"**

**Chapter Seven  
I****t Hurts to Stay**

"Tony," Tea starts the moment the door closes softly behind them, but Tony doesn't want to hear it.

"No." He interrupts, easily assuming the control that had so slipped through his fingers before. He's Tony fucking Snyder and things happen the way he wants them to, or they don't happen at all. "You're scared. You always get scared, and then you come back and we make it work. So let's make this work. I love you. You, at the very least, like me."

"Tony," Tea tries again.

"I'm not _finished_." He growls before continuing. "So next week, I'm going to take you out. Proper date. Dinner or something. Whatever you want. And we'll go and we'll have a good time. And everything will be just fine. Because we work, Tea."

"Tony, this has to stop."

What?

"Excuse me?" Tony blinks slowly and it's like deja vu of the morning he told her he loved her. Everything going too slow and too fast and none of it makes sense. It's supposed to make sense. Tea makes it make sense, even when she jumbles it all up in a chaotic mess of everything he's always distanced himself from and throws it in his face.

"This," She does that lame pointing to the space between the two of them thing. "It has to stop. I don't want a relationship. And I sure as hell don't want a _boyfriend_. So whatever this was, it's _not _anymore."

"You see, this is the you running part. The scared of how you feel bit that I went over a minute ago. I thought we'd decided to skip over that and jump straight to make it work. Was I delusional for a second there? I did actually give the speech?"

"Yes, you gave the speech. It was, well, it was a speech. But I'm not your girlfriend, I don't want to be your girlfriend, and you don't get to decide what bits we skip."

"So we're going to wait out the scared part, and then make it work?" And he's trying to get his smirk back up, but his lips are refusing to cooperate because he knows that's not what she means.

"Tony." And she's looking at him, almost a glare, but without any of the subtext that's become so familiar, so routine. There's no lust behind those eyes, no playful teasing or half-hearted reprimand. She means it. She's ending this thing between them.

And she _means_ it.

"You love me."

"No. I don't." She's quick to deny. Too quick. He's sure she doesn't mean it.

"You _love _me. You don't have to say it. God forbid you admit that you feel anything." Tea starts to move away from him, away from this conversation and this reality. But his hand, of its own accord, reaches out and grabs her wrist, pulls her back to him. And he comforts himself with the knowledge that if she hadn't wanted him to, he never would have been able to. "But you do. You love me."

"I feel _something_, okay. But it's not love. It'll _never _be love." Her eyes, shining with unshed tears bore into his own and he just wants to make the pain stop. His and hers.

"You love me." He tries again. Desperately.

"I don't." She voice wavers and cracks, and he knows, knows beyond any shadow of any doubt, that is a _lie_. But it's one she wants to believe. Maybe one she has to believe. Maybe she's too broken for him to fix. Maybe he's too broken to fix her. He doesn't know. All he knows is that she chose. Between him and the life she'd always chosen to lead, she chose the facade. She'd rather be a broken mask than real with him. And that's the only thing he really needs to know.

"Fine. Fuck you." Tony's voice breaks. "Go out and fuck any girl that moves. Go and be the Tea Marvelli the world has come to know and fear and respect. Be that girl. The one that had so trapped you that you thought you'd never fucking get out from under the mask of her face. Just _go_. Be alone."

His fingers loosen, then drop, free her from his grasp.

"Tony..." Tea tries again, reaches out to touch the hand that had released her, but he jerks away.

"I'm tired, Tay. I tried. For months I shut up, I didn't say a word about how I felt. I wanted you to get over this crippling fear you have of relationships and commitment. But I _can't _anymore, okay? It _hurts_. All right? Being your little fucktoy on the side _hurts_. Because I want more, and you won't let me have it."

"So...we're over then?" And there is hesitance there that the old Tony would have pounced on, would have used to get her back in his arms and his bed. But this Tony already has her in his heart, and himself in hers even if she'll never admit it, so he doesn't see the point. He won the battle, perhaps even the war, but it was a hollow victory. He didn't get her in the end.

Somehow, he always thought he would.

"Yeah, Tea." He closes his eyes, tries to will time back to a place where this doesn't hurt. Where he and Tea are perfect and strong and right instead of flawed and weak and wrong. "We're over."

"Okay." He feels her brush her lips against his check, and it's not fair because she doesn't get to do that. To show him that she cares as she's leaving him. To remind him of what they could have been after she shatters it. "Goodbye, Tony."

And he can't get the words out because if he open his mouth all that will come out is _stay_, and he's begged enough tonight. She wouldn't have anyways. Tea always, _always _runs away. You'd think he'd have learned that by now.


	8. So Leave Me

**AN: This one is espiecially short. Apologies to thoses who always ask for longer chapters. The rest should be about the same length as the rest of the fic, too. Longer chapters in the 3rd maybe...**

**Warnings: language**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins".**

**Chapter Eight  
****So Leave Me**

Tea doesn't know what she's doing here. She doesn't know how she got here at all. But someway, somehow she managed to end up here again. At the merry-go-round that started it all. Twice.

And she could just keep walking. Move past this little park where she met a different boy than the one she thought she knew, where a boy who would be king left his crown at her feet and asked her to chose. Where she had inadvertently, stupidly, helplessly started to fall from too high too fast.

She's not falling now. Just hanging in the inky black abyss that is the aching nothing-numbness she had almost forgotten was a part of her.

But she's not in love. She's not. This thing, whatever it was before it wasn't, it's not love. Curiosity, maybe, with a dash of obsession. It was something to cling to, to make her forget that she's broken.

But she's never needed anything like that before, and she doesn't need it now. She doesn't. She _doesn't_.

She does. She needs him. He makes her right, when she's wrong. Fixes her when she's broken.

But she lived without him before, and she'll live without him again. it was easier then. It'll be easy again. A few days to get back into the swing of things, and she'll be her old self. The unfathomable Tea, untouchable.

She can make this work. She can make herself be the same as she was. Strong like she was, instead of fragile like this. She hates him for this. For making her weak. For making her _feel_.

"Stupid asshole..." She mumbles to herself, half-hoping, half-dreading that he'd suddenly appear at her words. Somehow summoned by the uttering the appellation used to reference him so often it might as well be a nickname. But he doesn't show up. Of course, he doesn't.

He's probably still in his room, sitting around in his underwear in the dark, plotting some kind of scheme. To get her back, or make her sorry for leaving. Possibly something involving various naked women and one naked him.

A brief pang of agony at the idea, but she brushes it away. She doesn't care. She doesn't care about him or anything he does. She doesn't care about anything.

_Fuck, you really don't care, do you?_

_I really don't._

The memory comes unbidden, and she wants to punch something. It's so fucking _stupid_. It doesn't mean anything at all. And she should go. Now. Before any more memories pop up to piss her off.

But she doesn't. She can't find the energy to move, to just leave. Maybe, she's left enough for one day. Maybe, for a minute, she can just stay.

She's tired of running. Always running. Running from other people, and relationships, and Tony. Especially Tony. Because, god forbid, anyone ever catch her. Because what if she let him in, the way he so desperately wants her to, and there's nothing there? What if she's just as empty as she's always feared and Tony just proves it all _true_, instead of _false_?

She left him again. He reaches out and she pulls away. He pushes and she disappears, and it's not fair to either of them, but it's happening just the same. It always happens just the same, and she can't seem to make it change.

She maybe wants to though.

Wants to stay still for a minute and see if this doesn't have to end with both of them even more broken than when they started. If maybe, despire everything that says they shouldn't, they can work.

If she lets them. If she stops running long enough to let him in. If she lets him break down all the walls keeping her safe from abstract notions like love.

If she _wants_ him to...


	9. It's Falling Down as You Walk Away

**AN: Second to last Chapter on this one guys. The end is nigh. Sadness... Reviews=updates.**

**AN2:Still no spell check. Why, Fanfiction, why? Sincerest apologies for any errors.**

**Warnings: Language**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins".**

**Chapter Nine  
****It's Falling Down as You Walk Away**

Tony watches her leave. Watches the dark form of her as she walks away. As she leaves him. He never _thought _she would; he always _knew _she would. But it still hurts more than he had thought possible. He held his heart and hers in the palms of his hands and then he screwed them both. Added another crack to their armors, gouged a huge gaping gash in their masks. And he doesn't feel like Tony fucking Snyder anymore. He feels like the punkass little bitch who told a girl he loved her and than watched her walk away from him. From them. From everything they were and everything they could have been. _Should _have been.

"Fuck!" He shouts, hands running through his hair. How had this managed to get so hopelessly screwed up? They matched. They were perfect. He loved her. She loved him. Why couldn't she see that? Why couldn't they work? They were supposed to work. You know, kinda in the _forever _sort of way.

His open open, and for a second he stupidly, irrationally, thinks it's Tea coming back. Suddenly willing to be with him, right this time. But it's not. Of course it's not. It's Eura, and she looks fucking pissed.

She storms over to him and smacks the hell out of him.

"Ow!" He snarls, hand going to his stinging cheek. "What the fuck, Eura?"

"You stupid, ineffective, moronic, fucking asshole." Eura spits out. And Tony has to take a second to registar the insults because, holy shit, Eura is talking to him.

"What?" He blurts out stupidly, then angrily. "What the hell are you yelling at me for?"

"You just let her go!" Eura shouts back, eyes narrowing with a rage to match his own. "You fucking love her, and she fucking loves you too, and instead of fixing it like you were supposed to, you let her run again, you dildo."

"She doesn't want to be with me, Eura." He growls because he doesn't need this shit right now. He doesn't need any of this ever. "She too fucking scared."

"Then go find the bitch, and unscare her. I'm not dealing with you being all mopey and love-sick for the rest of forever because she broke your tiny, manipulative heart damn it!" She shouting in earnest now, and where the fuck are their parents? He could use a parental out about now.

"It's not that simple! If it were, don't you think I'd have fucking done it already?" he roars back because this is not his fault. He tried. He really fucking tried, and Tea wasn't having it.

"It _is _that simple. Go, right now. Get the fuck out. Track Tea down, and make her listen. Make her understand. Do something. Or you're both going to fucking miserable, and I'm not having it!"

"Eura,"

"No! Go. Now. Find her."

"Eura."

"Right the fuck now, Tony Snyder, or so help me God, I'll date the confused lesbian slut!"

"You're way out of line!"

"Too fucking bad. Get gone this instant."

"Fuck you, Eura. Okay? Just fuck you."

"Love you too. Now go."

"Fuck!" Tony whispers, closes his eyes. He wants this to make sense but it doesn't. It really, really doesn't. And before he's even decided to, he's moving. Getting dressed, walking out after her. But he has to stop at the threshold. "Thanks, sis. You know, for pulling my head out of my ass."

"S'what I'm here for, Tone. Now move." But there's a smile on her lips.

* * *

She's not home. He figured that out after throwing rocks at her window for ten minutes. And a quick call to Daisy tells him she's not there either, Abbud's voice in the background proof that it's not a lie. And he doesn't know where else she'd go.

Northen Soul, maybe. But if she's there, he's shit out of luck because there's no way he's getting into a dyke bar. They have pretty strenuous no dick rules. Understandably. And he doesn't really like the idea of spending hours standing around outside of the club and hoping that she comes out alone and at least mostly sober. Also, they'd probably call the cops. That shit's just creepy.

So he's out of fucking options, really. She's not on good enough terms with Michelle to crash at her place, especially not after something like this. Scorned women and their wrath and whatnot. Chris doesn't have a house to crash in, Stan's dad is a dick, and where the fuck would she go?

For a second he panics, considers the thought that maybe she just bolted. Like left the city the way she's left him. But, of course that's stupid. Why would she do that. They're over. She wanted them over. And she may be a runner, but not like that. It'd be surrender in this little war they've never stopped waging. It'd be losing. And Tea hates to lose.

Resuming her sexcapades, flaunting it in front of him, rubbing it in to hurt. That's more her style. His stomache turns unpleasently at the thought. The idea of having to watch her run around with girl after girl right in front of him. But it's not going to happen. It's just not. He's going to get her back.

He has to.

And then, he notices that while his mind had been wandering, so had his feet. The park is painfully familiar. The start of them had happened here. On a drunken date, he'd challenged her and she'd matched him. On a night of chaos, he'd surendered the one thing he valued more than anything. He gave her control, power over him the way no one else ever has. And now, he realizes with jarring simplicity, he gave her his heart. Right there on that damn merry-go-round.

He looks at it, momentarily blinded by rage, and seriously considers burning the thing to the ground. But, with a start, he realizes that he can't. Because he's not alone. Someone else is sitting morosely in the dark. And even in the near complete dark, he recognizes her. He's seen her roaming about without light often enough, after all.

He considers leaving. Telling Eura he couldn't find her, she'd never know. Neither of them would. He could hide this moment of weakness from Tea and she'd never know she'd dragged him down to chasing blindly through the streets. But the image of her wrapped around some girl, someone who isn't him in every way, surges to the fore and he can't. He can't leave. Can't leave them like this.

They match each other. They fix each other. And, damn it all, he's going to fucking _fix _this.


	10. I Hope You Need this Now

**AN: Stole a bit of dialogue from Skins UK series 3. Had to do it, fit to beautifully not to. Bonus points to the person who finds it though... And, surprise, this is the last chapter of "Dance Through the Pain". Ask me real nice though, and I'll continue the series...**

**Warnings: Language**

**Disclaimer: I don't own "Skins" or this would all be canon.**

**Chapter Ten  
****I Hope You Need this Now, Cause I Still Do**

His steps fall silent on the soft grass, but she doesn't seem surprised when he takes a seat beside her. She just sighs a little and closes her eyes, a pained expression crossing over her face before her practiced mask of neutrality overcomes it. But he sees through it. He always has. He told her she could never hide from him, and he damn well meant it.

"Go away, Tony." She says. She sounds so tired. So broken. "I don't want to fight right now."

"Great." He shrugs. Determined to be at least slightly more manly than their previous encounter. "I don't want to fight either."

Tea just sighs again. She's tired of fighting this. Of fighting him. She doesn't have the strength anymore.

"The way I see it is, we have this thing. Whatever you want to call it. It's more than lust, on both sides, even if you don't love me. And I think you do, even if it scares you. But the thing is, Tay, it scares me too."

"Then why keep on, Tone?" Tea sighs, she said she didn't want to fight and she meant it. "Why not just let it go? Be my friend again, and nothing else."

"Because, Tea," He smiles so sadly that it breaks her damn heart, and she hates him for it. For making her want to comfort him at the same time she just wants to run away from him and everything he's trying to give her. "You're worth fighting for. Because it only scares me when you leave."

"I always leave, Tony." Tea rest her head on his shoulder, even though she knows she should be putting as much distance between them as possible. "Haven't you figured that out yet?"

"Yeah. But you always come back." Tony laughs a litle, but it sounds off, strangled almost. "Only this time you didn't."

"I didn't know how." She whispers so softly she's sure he can't hear her.

"I didn't know how to make you stay..." He trails off, his head coming down on hers as his arm circles her shoulders. "I wanted you to, though."

"I-I wanted to too." Tea struggles to make the words come. The truth never comes as easy as one of their silver lies; it's rough and brittle, and it'll break them if they're not careful.

"Then why didn't you, Tay?" She can hear the agony in his voice, can see it on his face in her mind even if she can't see him now.

"Because I'll break your heart, Tony. And we're already so broken."

He pulls away to look at her, eyes full of all the things she can't name and the one thing she doesn't want to. "Maybe I'll break yours."

"Nobody breaks my heart." And it's true. No one has ever been close enough to even touch it. But she knows without a shadow of a doubt that this boy could shatter it.

"You've never let anyone close enough to find out." Tony smiles a little, a fragmented smirk for the fragmented man. "But I can match you. You've met your match, and I can reach it, Tay. And I can hold it so close to my own that it'll be safe forever."

"You don't know that." Tea looks away from him, and his promises she wants to believe.

His hand comes up, gently pulls her gaze back to his own. "Yes. I can. Because I would never do anything to hurt you."

And he's kissing her. Soft and tender and everything they're not and everything they sometimes wish to be. And she can't fight him anymore. She doesn't _want _to.

The kiss changes quickly from slow and gentle to hard and fast. Hands start a flurry of motion, pulling at clothes, trying to get skin on skin. To reach out and touch what they had thought lost. Teeth nips at lips, at the soft flesh of their lover's necks. Tongues lap out to soothe the burn of the bites, to taste what might have been forbidden once.

Tony pulls Tea closer, or maybe she pushes forward. Neither can tell and neither cares because they're not close enough. But they're falling back and she's on top of him, and they're still not close enough. The buttons of his button-up pop, they're _in the way_, and then her hands are on him. Roaming over him in ways familiar and new. She knows him, knows every inch of his skin, but she wants more of him. Nails digging in just a little, faint red lines rising ever so slightly over his chest as his own hands undo her jeans.

He pushes them off, hands moving slowly over her ass and thighs, savoring the feel of her again. He'd been so scared that he'd lost her forever. Then he brings raises his hands again, to her back, fingers memorizing the space between her vertebrea, the feel of her shuddering breaths against her ribs as she works to free him from his own jeans.

He rolls them, not that he doesn't love her on top, but the angle is better with all the bits of clothing that are still clinging to them.

"I love you." He says again, unwilling to start this again if she won't hear the words. Won't accept that these feeling between them.

"I know." And it almost sounds like _I love you too_.

He slides into her, hot and tight and familiar. And her body melds with his, two people becoming one in the heat of the moment. Lost in each other the way they were always supposed to be.

Her nails dig ito his skin, draw rivulets of blood from him back and shoulders and arms, but he loves it. Loves it because it's her trying to get as close to him as he's trying to get to her. Because he's buried deep inside her familiar warmth, and he's still not fucking close enough...

He's moving faster and harder in her than he thought he could, half afriad he's hurting her but far more afraid that he'll lose her again if he stops. Her head falls back, lolls to the side as she arches into him, the tiniest moans slipping from her lips as she tries to keep quiet. Tony takes advantage of this to latch his lips to her delicatble neck. Branding her flesh with his touch so everyone will know that Tea is _his_.

Her moans get progessively louder, his own joining them, mingling together. And she's tightening around him. Coming harder than she can remember coming before. And he's coming too, sounding half-strangled. But he doesn't pull out, just hovers above her. Barely holding himself up on his elbows, he brushes a lock of damp hair out of her face with a smile.

"You're beautiful, you know." He whispers, leaning down for an almost chaste kiss. "And I love you."

Tea is mortified as she feels the blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. No one has ever made her blush before. And she kind of wants to slap him for making her do it now, but the moment is too soft, too tender. She doesn't want to break it.

"So," Tony continues. "go out with me, Tea Marvelli. The right way this time."

"Okay." And this time it's Tea who kisses Tony softly, trying to tell him all the things she can't seem to make herself say.

Tony grins the biggest damn grin she's ever seen on his face, before slowly moving out of her. He refastens his pants with trembling fingers, shaking with emotion he can't even begin to name, before quietly helping Tea with her own.

"We just had sex on a merry-go-round. In a public park. Where children play." Tony smirks a little. "We're terrible people."

"Yeah." Tea smirks back, hands moving of their own violation to help him buttons still on his shirt. "But that's okay. Keeps things from getting...boring."

Tony laughs, a full out laugh like he almost never does. "Good thing too. Not a fan of boring things."

"Good." A kiss, fast and hard before she's backing away from him, his smirk firmly in place on her face. "Cause I'm always interesting."

Tea turns and runs, and, laughing, Tony chases after her. Because that's the way it's always been. And if he has anything to say about it, and he will if he has to kill every other fucker on the planet, that's the way it will always be.

Because Tea is his. And he's hers. And, damn it all, he _likes _it that way.


End file.
